Christian Ethics and American Law

The American political debate is a heated landscape—a landscape that is not at all lacking in general presuppositions, that are undeniably philosophical in nature, that are scarcely brought to intellectual scrutiny. One might declare that some law is ‘unjust,’ or that this law in favor of the ‘common good.’ Another person may say certain public policies violate basic ‘human rights.’ Each of these claims presupposes that there is some universal norm by using words such as 'justice' and 'common good' that everyone is aware of, that has moral implications, and that we all have an obligation to uphold.

What is most concerning is the post-modern tendency to say that moral principles and the law should not be connected. Morality should not be legislated. This is a common American notion. While this problematic assertion can be approached in many ways, I think the most fundamental question that should be asked is, what is law?

It seems to me that the common American idea of law is a set of rules set forth by the State that are enforced by a credible threat of force and punishment. There is something undoubtedly true about that proposition, but does it fully capture the essence of the law? Are we prepared to accept that the law is merely a matter of obedience and control? Sure, obedience and control have something to do with effective laws, but do they adequately define the nature of the law? If so, what distinguishes the ‘just’ laws from ‘unjust’ laws? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps all laws are simply expressions of the will-to-power of an individual or a group. But if this is so, what are we really saying when we complain about ‘unjust’ laws? Is it merely anger because our self-interests have failed to win over the self-interests of others?

That may be so, but it would be undeniably strange. Why? Because the human experience has shown us that there is a difference between asserting our own wants and true ‘justice’—whatever that is. Children and adolescents commonly accuse their parents of being ‘unfair’ for not giving them something they want. But is that the same as, say, Martin Luther King saying that it was ‘unfair’ for the State of Alabama to refuse to allow African Americans to enroll in its universities? Both statements involve a claim on others. It seems safe to say that we are fooling ourselves if we think that there is no substantial difference between the two.

When parents deny children something they want, there is no universal moral reason as to why a child must have, say, a particular toy. The only reason a child may have to claim ‘unfairness’ against their parents is their own desires. Martin Luther King in his Letter From Birmingham Jail argued that rights due to him by virtue of the natural law, by virtue of his humanity were unjustly denied him and any laws protecting this injustice are not laws at all.

It is clear that Dr. King believed that laws are designed to protect justice. He also presupposes a natural moral order that we humans can know and must conform ourselves to. Is he right? I think so. What if he isn’t? What would that mean? Consider this. Adolf Hitler legalized every action he made while in power in Nazi Germany. Does legal status, morally qualify his actions, particularly the 6 million Jews that perished at his command? Did the legal status of slavery make it morally acceptable? It strikes me that most Americans would agree that Hitler did immoral deeds and slavery is immoral. But that same majority of Americans accepts the horror of abortion as the status quo and often cites that it won’t be illegal anytime soon. Or, they claim that the legality of abortion won’t stop women from seeking abortions. So why stop it?

The problem is abortion is murder. Take for instance the act of murder. Why is murder against the law? There are two reasons. One, to allow citizens to kill one another would produce anarchy and is against the interest of the State. Two, murder is an objective moral evil that is contrary to human nature. It is self-evident that the second reason has more bearing than the first. The convenience of outlawing murder for the State to maintain order is a by-product of the reality that the act of killing innocents is contrary to the moral order of the universe and that the endorsement of the action itself cannot yield any good or productivity for any human society.

One might ask, what does it all matter? It matters because it affects each and every individual in society. Why might we say that African Americans have a right to liberty over slavery? One might argue that slavery—free labor—is beneficial to the American economy and thus, the ‘common good.’ So why not allow slavery? Are there really any inviolable human rights that cannot be gone against no matter what profit or convenience doing so may yield? I certainly think there are.

We live in a society of ‘rights.’ We all have a right to something and we’ll be damned if anyone takes those rights away. But where do rights come from? In the modern, agnostic, morally relative world of scientific materialism all we are, is a collection of atoms no different in substance than that of a desk or a television. The universe in itself has no meaning and no purpose, which logically means that there is no meaning or purpose to our lives. If that’s true, what are ‘rights’ especially if we arguably have no meaning, and therefore, no dignity?

The notion of ‘natural rights’ was developed in the Catholic intellectual tradition in contribution to the philosophy of law. A fundamental concern for America is whether or not it is possible to preserve the notion of ‘natural rights’ without the Judeo-Christian understanding of the human person and of human nature which the notion of the natural law has been traditionally based. Can the idea of a natural law stand if we’re nothing but a random assortment of matter on a tiny dot that we call earth in a vast and meaningless cosmos? The short answer is no.

These questions are pressing. Western society is dominated by moral relativism, which leads ultimately to moral decay. We have come to idolize the biblical figure Cain in not wanting to be our brother’s keeper. America is in dire need of a strong, vibrant Christian presence to transform this debate and give it moral clarity. It is an imperative that there is an awareness of the origin of laws and a proper understanding of the moral and intellectual principles of interest in the American legal system—inalienable rights, civil liberties, federalism, separation of powers, etc.

This is why it upsets me that some Christians pull their children out of the public schooling system—still leaving millions of other children to go through the broken system—and refuse to be at the front of the campaign for American education reform so that Christian moral principles are not disregarded or given merely lip service. We need to return philosophy to our education system and instill moral values.

More importantly, Christians must be more than a force to illegalize abortion in the public square. It is vital that we are able to articulate our Christian moral perspective through rational and philosophical discourse because this vital tool (philosophy)—has been virtually eliminated and trivialized in western society—is the only way we may help America rediscover those human and moral truths that are written into the nature of the human person.

Christians: Why Are We Absent In Hollywood?

Typically if one discusses the reflection of American culture in mainstream entertainment, there are very little positive things to be said—especially in Christian circles. But there is rarely a clear solution to the problem. Some discussions of the issues, in my experience, fail to reflect the gravity of the matter. I think it matters, more so than just casual condemnation in conversation. The entertainment center in America—Hollywood—matters because it is the global center of art and entertainment. Art is the way we humans respond to the cosmos. Every generation delivers something beautiful for future generations to brood over and take delight in. Storytelling is the way human beings learn. It is the way we define our values. It gives us heroes and noble dreams. Entertainment is the way we stretch beyond the limits of our day to day work to experience the depth of our human nature. Entertainment should lead us to laugh hard, to cry with empathy, and to feel exhilaration and wonder.

It is frightening to think that Christians are missing from this unbelievably influential and urgent landscape. Christians have something to offer that is direly missing from Hollywood. We bring hope, the mandate of concern for the world, and most importantly, the glory and creative energy of the Holy Spirit.

This is needed terribly in movies, television shows, videogames, and the Internet. We need not only to be donating to and praying for organizations such as ActOne, which has a Christian vision for entertainment, we need to encourage faith-filled artists and professionals to be writers, directors, actors, and so forth, in order to change the landscape and give our youth better idols to look up to. This is a moral imperative for all Christians.

We also need to realize that American culture has deeply shaded Christian religious practice for the worse. It is a current trend to “switch” between denominations to find what “feels good” and not what is the truth. There is an emphasis on finding a church that gathers everyone together in a false sense of unity—a church without dogma, without a clear moral framework of life, no political declarations, etc—that makes us all feel good. We want to be comfortable in our sins.

It seems to me that an authentic Christianity is going to make us uncomfortable, it is going to make us cringe as we follow our moral conscience to the point of receiving ridicule from others. That’s why I’m Catholic and why I chose it over every other religious tradition I looked at, even over Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

I find that even amongst Catholics, many wish we lived back in the 1830s when everyone was supposedly devout and attended a Tridentine Mass jovially. Not quite. The Church has faced challenges to life, to the family, and not so surprisingly for those of us who are catechized, there has always been dissent. The Gnostics, the Arians, the Nestorians, the Quietists, and the list goes on. There has always been those people unlearned in their faith, hypocrites, and people who use religion for personal gain. Forget living in this past. This is our time. This moment with its post-modern confusion, with its 24 hour chattering news cycle, its post-sexual revolution cynicism, vulgarity, morally-unbounded liberalism.

The Lord proclaimed, “Do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that have never nursed.’” I think we’ll be better off when we face the fact that we live in a dark world which is locked in a struggle with very high stakes. We should not be surprised by the ravages of sin. Only fools are scandalized. And those who have not been enlightened by the Gospel are susceptible to relativism, to so-called sexual freedom, to contraception, to legal and recreational drugs, to senseless wanton violence and if we fight it, we have to do so through their mechanisms—the entertainment media.

Archbishop Chaput Admonishes Nancy Pelosi

ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE: A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH IN NORTHERN COLORADO

To Catholics of the Archdiocese of Denver:

Catholic public leaders inconvenienced by the abortion debate tend to take a hard line in talking about the "separation of Church and state." But their idea of separation often seems to work one way. In fact, some officials also seem comfortable in the role of theologian. And that warrants some interest, not as a "political" issue, but as a matter of accuracy and justice.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.

Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition. . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Ardent, practicing Catholics will quickly learn from the historical record that from apostolic times, the Christian tradition overwhelmingly held that abortion was grievously evil. In the absence of modern medical knowledge, some of the Early Fathers held that abortion was homicide; others that it was tantamount to homicide; and various scholars theorized about when and how the unborn child might be animated or "ensouled." But none diminished the unique evil of abortion as an attack on life itself, and the early Church closely associated abortion with infanticide. In short, from the beginning, the believing Christian community held that abortion was always, gravely wrong.

Of course, we now know with biological certainty exactly when human life begins. Thus, today's religious alibis for abortion and a so-called "right to choose" are nothing more than that - alibis that break radically with historic Christian and Catholic belief. Abortion kills an unborn, developing human life. It is always gravely evil, and so are the evasions employed to justify it. Catholics who make excuses for it - whether they're famous or not - fool only themselves and abuse the fidelity of those Catholics who do sincerely seek to follow the Gospel and live their Catholic faith.

The duty of the Church and other religious communities is moral witness. The duty of the state and its officials is to serve the common good, which is always rooted in moral truth. A proper understanding of the "separation of Church and state" does not imply a separation of faith from political life. But of course, it's always important to know what our faith actually teaches.

+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
+James D. Conley
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

Abortion and the Healthcare System

The debate over abortion and healthcare has become heated after a White House proposal redefining abortion sparks debate over religious freedom and patients' rights.

In continuing coverage from a previous edition of Health and Life Sciences Law Daily, The Washington Post (7/31, A1, Stein) reports in a front-page story, "A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting healthcare workers who object to abortion and to birth-control methods...has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights." The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is considering a draft of the proposal "that would deny federal funding to any...entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions."

Proponents of the regulation "are welcoming the initiative as necessary to safeguard...health workers." But, opponents of the proposal "say the regulation would create overwhelming obstacles for women seeking abortions and birth control." The regulation's critics also expressed concern over the way the draft defines abortion, "as anything that affects a fertilized egg," and the possibility that it "could raise questions about a broad spectrum of scientific research and care."

The Wall Street Journal (7/31, A11, Simon) adds that the proposal's broad abortion definition "treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying 'the life of a human being.'" But many medical groups contend that anything that disrupts egg fertilization should be deemed as contraception, not abortion. "The draft regulation...would have no immediate effect on the legality of the pill or the IUD if implemented because abortion is legal." Opponents fear, however, that it "would undercut dozens of state laws designed to promote easy access to these methods of birth control, used by more than 12 million women a year."

In addition, the "proposed federal rule change to redefine pregnancy and abortion would override" some state laws "requiring all hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception," Minnesota's Star Tribune (7/30, Marcotty) added. "The rule is still being debated within [HHS], and medical organizations, family planning groups, and women's advocates across the country have been up in arms about it." In Minnesota, "women's health advocates and legislators held a news conference at the State Capitol urging lawmakers to resist attempts to make the proposed rule a reality."

Adult Entertainment Expo 2008...Come Again?

I didn't know such a thing existed until just now...

There is a convention for the adult film industry that I just currently ran across on television. Videos, sexual toys, and a host of things are sold for consumer "satisfaction." Porn stars sign autographs and meet their fans, better known as pornography addicts. Porn films are recognized for their style and content (as if it is artistic expression), given awards and so are the "actors" who star in them.

There are even interviews with some of the adult "actors." I watched one (it was brief) with a woman discussing how she got into the porn industry. It all broke my heart. These people were all addicted to sexual pleasure and nothing more and the industry had no problem exploiting them for profit.

That's all I could allow myself to watch.

I pray for America because she is being led to ruin...

Roman Catholics for Obama '08

Archbishop Chaput is an admirable Catholic leader in the United States. He faithfully presents the teachings of the Church and candidly speaks about them. More importantly, he is very humble and often gives people the benefit of the doubt; it might be more accurate to say, he invites Catholics to conscientiously reflect on the teachings of the Magisterium and conform to the authentic teachings of Christ Jesus. I think this is direly needed especially in the politicization of the Catholic Church and debate on which American political party better reflects Catholic social teaching.

Earlier this year, the Denver Archbishop offered a coherent vision of Catholic responsibility as voters in the American political process. He clearly stressed the primacy of the abortion issue and did not criticize those who for "proportionate" reasons vote for a pro-choice candidate. He did emphasize that he disagreed with them, but in his experience, he knew people, of good will, who morally did oppose abortion, but hoped to bring about its demise in a different way.

I am proud that Catholics speak out against pro-choice rhetoric. I am even more proud that we remind fellow Catholics that the pro-choice position is not compatitible with our faith. But, in his own way, Archbishop Chaput is a humble gift to the Catholic Church in America. He goes beyond political language and does not speak condescendingly or make ad hominem statements. I personally am grateful for him as a Roman Catholic. While I profoundly disagree with people who identify as "pro-choice," I think basic respect is due to them and true civil dialogue will serve us better as we move toward the goal of ending the horror of abortion. In all truthfulness, calling people "baby killers," "pro-death," "proponents of a culture of death," "anti-life" and so forth, while it may be true of their position, it is not productive and it yields an unnecessary culture war at the expense of lives of unborn children who die everyday while we fail to humbly approach those who disagree with us. The solution to hostility is not to respond with hostility.

Once again, I admire and thank Archbishop Chaput and I recommend his words to the Roman Catholics who for whatever reason have decided to back Sen. Barack Obama for President.

Thoughts on "Roman Catholics for Obama '08"
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